


Step By Step

by morvish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/pseuds/morvish
Summary: prompt: Are you drunk?The answer is yes, Keith is drunk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr from sinelanguage. send me prompts!

Lance wasn’t a huge worrier. He said it often and loudly, so it was definitely true.

“Don’t worry!” he had said just earlier that day when Pidge had tried to tell him some techno gobbledegook about not sticking certain wires in certain plugs or something. It had totally turned out fine, especially after they put the fire out.

“Don’t worry,” he had sighed, rolling his eyes, the other day, when Allura had asked him why there were so many shoes on one of the landings in the Castle. He had just been arranging all the ones he’d collected from the different planets.

“Hey,” he had said cheerfully, clapping a hand on Shiro’s shoulder the other day, when Allura had been late to come back from a mission, “don’t worry.”

Lance was not a worrier.

But he couldn’t help but feel the creeping sensation of doubt slip through the cracks in his mind with each fidget of his leg. His clasping and unclasping hands between his legs where he sat also brought to his mind some kind of dictionary definition image of ‘A Worrier’. He was sure that even the crease between his eyebrows might have been telling of it too.

Maybe he was a bit of a worrier.

But – he supposed, his boyfriend and his best friend were on a far flung mission in the depths of space. _The depths of space._

They had lost contact with them more than a few hours ago – nearly all day in fact. And honestly, Lance wasn’t keen on that fact. He was less than pleased about it. He might even have admitted to someone that he was a little – concerned about it.

He might have.

Earlier Shiro had come and clapped a hand on Lance’s own shoulder and said, “don’t worry.” And Lance knew this one had been a little more sincere than the last time Lance had said it to Shiro. He’d responded with a pointed look at Shiro, who’d huffed a laugh and put his arms in the air. “Fine, fine,” he had said. “But they’ll both come back. Coran said this would happen.”

Lance stopped the jiggle in his leg by stretching his limbs out in front of him. After achieving a satisfyingly distracting enough ache, he collapsed his top half onto his legs and cried, “Ugh!”

Keith had only been his boyfriend for two weeks, and it would be just his luck if Keith M.I.A.’d right at this point in their relationship. Typical Keith.

He sat back up at the thought. _That wouldn’t really be typical actually,_ he thought to himself. Then flopped back.

He hated that he was sitting there on a large bench outside the hangar doors, in the dead of the false night time they’d established, waiting up for his two best friends to come back, picturing increasingly worse scenarios.

 _Lance, that’s the definition of worrying,_ voiced the Keith in his mind, always there to offer his annoying opinion, and after the initial irritation, Lance felt a kind of comfort in the voice’s presence.

“At least when I find out that Keith is never coming back, I can feel happy knowing I'll always have him with me,” he mumbled, throwing a dramatic arm over his eyes, and sleepily wondering how much he was actually joking.

“We’re back!” came an unfamiliarly loud and cheerful voice from the hangar. The voice echoed around the large space airily, but it all came to Lance through the door sounding distant and muted.

Lance shot up.

There was some indistinct shushing and chatter from behind the doors, with some muffled chuckling.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lance knew he should go to the door to see his friends come back, but very much in the front of his mind was the bizarreness of what he just heard.

He turned slowly to the double doors, watching through the slits of glass as two distorted figures loped awkwardly towards him. He narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“What-” he tried to say to himself, before they burst through the door and there was an explosion of energy.

“Lance!” cried Keith. “It’s you!”

Lance was suddenly tugged off his seat and into what may have literally been a bone crushing hug. He winced.

“Keith?” he said, and looked to Hunk who just rolled his eyes.

“Lance,” said Keith again, adjusting his arms sloppily but effectively enough that Lance could correct the pressure of the embrace. Keith sighed fondly, and laid his head on Lance’s chest. Lance felt the usual flutter of affection, mixed in with a helping of confusion, as his hand automatically went to stroke the back of Keith’s head. “Have you been an idiot without me?”

“Excuse me!” Lance dropped his stroking hand, and shoved Keith away at arm’s length.

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed dramatically.

“Wait for it,” said Hunk, who was now leaning against the wall. Before Lance could question him however, Keith had pulled out of Lance’s grasp and looked ready to fight.

“In a good way obviously,” he said.

Lance’s face split into something beyond confusion.

“No, listen to me, L-Lance,” Keith said, slurring Lance’s name just slightly, hands spread out wide. “You’re the best idiot I know.”

“I,” said Lance, but he had nothing else to say.

Keith seemed satisfied with that. “I like it when you’re an idiot sometimes. It makes me laugh.” He smiled fondly, and that was the smile that Lance couldn’t resist. It was a little more languid and heavy-eyed than usual, but it was still like looking at sunshine to Lance. He let out a small, “Pfft.”

He heard Hunk do the same from behind Keith.

Lance crossed his arms.

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

Keith didn’t hesitate.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Very much – a lot so I think.”

Lance’s mouth fell open.

“Did you _drive_?”

“No, no, no, no, no,” butted in Hunk, very sternly, holding a hand in the air. “And no.”

Keith blew out a breath jokily. “Anyway,” he said, glancing at Hunk over his shoulder, like they were sharing in some hilarious joke about Lance together, “it’s called _piloting_ , Lance.”

Again, Lance was lost for words. Hunk shrugged at him, but Keith didn’t notice. He just bumped clumsily back against the wall next to Hunk, arms crossed, eyes closed, a sleepy smile on his face.

Lance used the silence to take a moment in comprehending the last five minutes.

He had been minding his own business, worrying his mind out waiting for Keith and Hunk to get back, and then suddenly – like some kind of whirlwind of relief and confusion, Keith had hurtled back in a less than sober state with Hunk in tow.

“What happened?” he cried.

Keith mumbled something incoherent, eyes still closed and back pressed against the wall.

Hunk sighed. “Well,” he said. “We were really close to getting back, when I realised that there was a planet with some stuff Pidge wanted on the way back. These really cool electrodes actually; they kind of glow blue and do some really interesting things with this transistor we have-” Hunk interrupted himself by yawning. “I’m too tired to explain it – but basically they were having some kind of party, and they wouldn’t even _talk_ to us if we didn’t join in, and – well – Keith stepped up, and then,” Hunk gestured to Keith. “This happened.”

Lance nodded blankly.

Keith let out a tired sigh.

Hunk shook his head.

“You know, he wouldn’t stop talking about you,” he said.

Lance felt an immediate glow blossom from his chest to his cheeks.

“What did he say?” he asked.

“Oh,” said Hunk. “You know, the stuff about you being an idiot, and how caring you are, even though it takes a while to realise that. How thoughtful you are. Some embarrassing stuff I’m not going to repeat about your general – general thing you’ve got going on.”

Lance smirked. “Please repeat it.”

“Guh,” Hunk crossed his arms. “Just you know, nice hair, nice face, nice … shoulders, I think?”

“Thanks, Hunk, I never knew you felt that way.”

Hunk rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Just get him into a bed before he passes out in the hallway.”

Lance grinned back. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Hunk clapped him on the back before heading off to his own bedroom.

“I’m glad you’re back safe!” Lance called after him as he went, and Hunk lifted an arm to wave in response. Lance turned back to Keith. “And now, what to do with you.”

Keith blinked his eyes open sleepily.

“Me?” he asked.

“No, Greg the invisible man next to you.”

Keith closed his eyes again, settling back into what Lance could not describe as something that looked like a comfortable position at all. “His name is Gerald, Lance,” he mumbled.

Lance prodded his arm.

“Well I was being sarcastic and Gerald can wait to get the Five Star Lance Treatment. You’ve got dibs.”

Keith sighed in a long-suffering way, which Lance thought was just a little bit rich, but he had managed to get Keith to sling an arm across his shoulders at least which was a positive step forward.

“That’s right, come on.”

Keith shot him a glare. “Stop being condescending,” he said – except he didn’t say condescending; he said a babble word which vaguely held the shape of the word ‘condescending’.

“Sorry, sorry,” smiled Lance.

“You don’t look very sorry, but good,” said Keith, resting his head against Lance’s shoulder.

Lance took that to mean he had been forgiven for his combershlendun comment.

They walked towards Keith’s room mostly in silence, Keith dozing on Lance’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re back,” said Lance finally. He had kind of been planning on telling Keith this as soon as he got back, but then he had decided it wasn’t the right moment – but he couldn’t quite keep it in.

“Me too,” said Keith. “I tried to make the mission go extra fast.”

Lance smiled, heat rising to his cheeks.

“I’m glad you’re my boyfriend too,” he said, biting the inside of his mouth. He hated how tween that came out. But it had only been two weeks, and they hadn’t talked about it _that_ much.

“Me too,” repeated Keith. “I told everyone about it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I told them about how cool you were.”

Lance felt something warm and happy pool in his chest as he grinned.

“Good ‘cause the universe needs to know.”

Keith snorted.

“I just missed you,” he said. “The universe probably needs a break.”

Lance let out a small grumble which made Keith laugh and suddenly pull Lance around. He took hold of Lance’s cheeks, and smushed them together.

Lance glared at him.

“Ridiculous,” whispered Keith after a moment, and leant up to kiss Lance on the lips very briefly in some kind of parallel to their first kiss. However, their first kiss had involved much more surrounding gunfire and noise, as well as a much more sober Keith. His choice of wording was the same though.

Lance puffed a breath in response.

“You’re the ridiculous one,” he mumbled, as they turned the corner to Keith’s room.

Keith smiled somewhat lucidly at him. Lance bit back a smile when he saw how fond the smile was.

Inside Keith’s room, Lance managed to get Keith into his pyjamas – bought for him by Hunk and Lance the previous year, and covered with cat faces – and finally onto his bed.

Keith flopped heavily over his duvet. Lance tugged at it, trying to get it from under Keith.

“Keith, get off so you can get under this and sleep without being freezing cold.”

“M’fine,” Keith muttered, rolling over to position himself even more centrally on top of the duvet.

Lance settled on throwing a blanket he’d left in there the other day over Keith, who snuggled into it appreciably.

“Imagine how much better a duvet would feel, dude,” Lance said, though he was only being half-serious.

Keith just curled further into the blanket.

“I get the message.”

Lance turned off the light before he left. “Goodnight, Keith.”

“Night,” he mumbled, and Lance could tell he was about two seconds off being asleep.

After closing the door, Lance leant back against the wall of the corridor and blew out.

Keith was back safe. Drunk – but safe. Lance could sleep knowing that the next day instead of Space-Skyping Keith, he could actually talk to him face to face. Although maybe it would be best to wait until the afternoon to do that.

Smiling, Lance pushed off from the wall to head to his own room, distinctly not worrying. Instead, thinking about how much Keith was going to hate his decisions tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning, Lance felt terrible with only four hours sleep after waiting for Keith and Hunk to get back. Keith, of course, didn’t even get a hangover.

**Author's Note:**

> a) writing drunk people is hard  
> b) welcome to my new exciting world of writing where i have no plot to anything ever  
> c) lordy do i start a lot of fics with lance waiting for keith to come back from a mission
> 
> oh, and also, d) the title is secretly lyrics from aquaman by walk the moon which i listened to pretty much on a loop while writing this, but you'd never know. except now i've told you. so now you know.
> 
> thank you to chase for reading over this!!! (also chase has really great art, please check him out at kantr.tumblr.com!)
> 
> also you can check me out on twitter (@ morvvish) and on tumblr (/morvish)!


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